Levels Of Diagnosis

[TonyG]

I have been only been on this site for a little over a month and already I am wondering about the system of diagnosis, my trauma was that I sat with people with horrific injuries as they died at the scene of the accident, I have made progress because I couldn't write that a month ago without tears,
Back to my point or question as it may be taken, I have read stories of trauma on here that make me feel sick and others that have been spoken to abruptly and the diagnosis for both is PTSD. How can that be right as the criteria for PTSD is a plain and simple check list.
I am no expert on the subject but either you have it or you don't. The demand for psychologists is high as there doesn't seen to be enough to go around, money comes into it, although my psychologist has offered me free visits so I know she is genuine, What are your thoughts?

 

[joeylittle]

I am no expert on the subject but either you have it or you don't.

Sounds pretty expert to me. The whole purpose of a diagnostic system, from a medical perspective, is to organize and codify different disorders. That's why there is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is different from Acute Stress Disorder, which is different from Adjustment Disorder, which is different from Generalized Anxiety Disorder...etc.

In my opinion, we need well trained professionals who really understand how to get to the root cause of the symptom set and understand the symptoms being presented in terms of severity. I had a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (along with depression), but once my PTSD symptoms all got set off fully, that GAD diagnosis got absorbed into just anxiety as a symptom of PTSD. It was a better way to understand my anxiety, which was never as debilitating as it is for someone with GAD as their primary diagnosis.

It's kind of like a venn diagram, and PTSD overlaps with many other individual disorders. Or Depression does. Or Anxiety does. Depending on which one you want to put in the middle.

My awesome psychiatrist, when I got worried that I fit the right number of criteria for Borderline and asked her to assess me for it, said - "No. You're not borderline." And I said, "but I have five out of the seven, blah, blah, blah" and we went through them all and I learned that it's really pretty straightforward, but it's really hard to know all by yourself what is actually what. I said "I think I get manic sometimes", she says "like how?", I say "sometimes I can think really fast, and I laugh a lot", and she said "that's called being smart and having a good day".

It was like that for a number of those criteria. And I realized how easy it is to go looking for yourself inside whatever mirror you might be most familiar with. I doubt most people know that there's even a thing called Acute Stress Disorder which is very similar but not identical to PTSD. And I bet there are many degreed but not-very-thorough doctors who just don't have a knack for getting it right.

And that's how it all goes wacky. In my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Just because you have a diagnosis doesn't mean that it is correct. I'm not saying *you* as in the OP, but *you* as in everyone out there. I'm sure there are lots of people out there who have an incorrect PTSD diagnosis because their psychiatrist was a little fast and loose with interpreting what constitutes "trauma". That's why you'll have people who come here and say they have been diagnosed with PTSD after being dumped, or they have felt bad for a few weeks and WANT this wretched disorder, so they can pretty much look up the diagnostic criteria and present all of their supposed "symptoms" to a professional and walk away with the disorder that they want.

Its actually pretty easy to spot the fakers. They come on here after having a rough time (something that falls within "normal"), say they have a dissociative disorder, CPTSD (not just PTSD, but CPTSD), blah, blah, blah. They just cherry pick these symptoms and don't know the ins and outs of why each one is experienced, when they start, etc. I'm pretty damn symptomatic right now so this shit pisses me off. This isn't a trendy thing to have. Its not fun. For many, myself included, its a lifetime struggle. Sometimes I wish that these people could be granted their "wish" of having PTSD....and yeah, this may be mean, but I'd seriously laugh at them. Its like wishing to have cancer! (WHO DOES THAT!?!? Oh, right, people who really ARE mentally ill, cray-cray, with more than a few screws loose!)

 

[TonyG]

You have put exactly as I see it, Not saying my opinion is right as I am a little mad myself but really why would anyone want to be this way.

 

[Intrepid]

It took a long time for me to get this sorted out for myself. Therapists were helpful, but I was triggered just by investigating. Its taken years to reduce the symptoms to that I could function normally, even in therapy. Believing any diagnosis was tough at first because I saw the therapist as an authority figure, and didn't trust her at all. I was constantly afraid she was setting me up to get re-traumatized. A previous therapy had done just that.

Oh, and yes, I have wished this on my worst enemies, but have retracted that. They don't even deserve this.

 

[Seasounds]

I have read stories of trauma on here that make me feel sick and others that have been spoken to abruptly and the diagnosis for both is PTSD. How can that be right as the criteria for PTSD is a plain and simple check list.

There are specific criteria to meet the PTSD diagnosis. Within the people that are diagnosed, there is a spectrum of frequency of episodes, duration of episodes, and severity of episodes. As anxiety and depression are components of PTSD, the same spectrum (as above) can apply to depression and anxiety states, within the diagnosis.

An aggravation to me ranges from being blamed via mean language for someone else's anger-this triggers deep abusive memories that can last 1 day to 3 months, depending on the situation), or a more severe aggravation of 1-2 years can occur after a major aggravation, where a real time situation approximated my severe childhood circumstances. Symptoms vary in severity, but always include anxiety, depression, avoidance behaviors, insomnia, levels of disassociate behaviors, muscle spasms, and flashbacks.

As PTSD is becoming fully understood, it is sometimes used I in.accurately. (This reminds me of when ADD was first popularized, decades ago.) On the other hand, acute or chronic PTSD is being recognized in situations where people are traumatized medically, without the support or time to process their experiences during their intensive phases -like in cancer treatment.

 

[Hashi]

I don't think people want PTSD. I think they want to feel validated for how bad they're feeling. They want a label that other people will take seriously.

Like saying they have flu when they have a cold. They don't want worse symptoms than the cold symptoms they already have. They probably aren't thinking that there's such a thing as worse symptoms because they're so wrapped up in how bad they feel. At the level of "bad" that they already feel, they want the sympathy and recognition that comes with calling it flu. And for whatever reason, they might honestly believe it's flu even though it isn't.

Someone who's been cheated on, or divorced, or lost their job wants the effects they're feeling to have a serious label. And they have experienced trauma, just not trauma that would cause PTSD. So they misdiagnose or - worse - are misdiagnosed by someone else.

There are also people who might say they have PTSD from their spouse having an affair, or from watching a TV programme or something, but later reveal that they have experienced other trauma that could cause PTSD. Because the PTSD symptoms were triggered by the later event, they can be adamant that it was the later event that gave them PTSD and that might be all they tell people. Especially if they're minimising or in denial about the earlier trauma, which many of us have done. So someone will post that a TV programme gave them PTSD and their diagnosis will understandably be questioned.

 

[greenleaf]

@Hashi, I think you've really summarized what's going on in various cases that frustrate and upset many folks here... Thank you.

 

[StellaBlue]

I don't think people want PTSD. I think they want to feel validated for how bad they're feeling. They want a label that other people will take seriously.

yes.

 

[Lucycat]

Yep. I got CPTSD from a phone call. I'm not joking. At the beginning I truly believed that. In fact the phone call simply blew the lid off Pandora's box and forced me to face the childhood sexual abuse I had suffered - and share the information. But I could only see that phone call as damaging me. Therapy helped.

But - the first thing I did was to get a new phone!